well susan rice is still being dragged through the mud for her inaccurate statements on the been gone the attacks all of this in the quest for the next secretary of state but given her history and more importantly her investments there is more to susan rice than meets the eye ahead our team vets the u.n. ambassador in ways the mainstream media didn't. civil war in syria and has its twenty second month the u.s. now says it will intervene if assad uses chemical weapons but does this remind you of iraq or both two thousand and three will take a look at the similarities in these cases and ask if intervention is inevitable. and backed by congressional demand but against white house objections stricter

sanctions on iran as part of the revamped and v.a. bill coming up a look at what these new measures and tale and whether they really are nonviolent. it's monday december third four pm in washington d.c. i'm christine for you're watching our tape while much of the mainstream media cycles last week were mired in chatter about u.n. ambassador susan rice and the possibility she may be considered to take over as secretary of state once hillary clinton leaves her post and most of what you probably heard sounded something like this. we are significantly troubled by many of the answers that we got and some that we didn't yet bottom line and more disturbed now than i was before we will not allow a brilliant public servant record to be mug to cut off her her

consideration to become secretary of state the republicans are making a big mistake the first thing they do after the election is start attacking an african-american woman without any cause by the way this is somebody had nothing to do with been guys a she was given cia information the cia told her here's what i think it's appropriate to say of course it's only racism when it's directed toward a a liberal or a democrat it's never racism toward a republican look if this is kind to lisa rice and not susan rice allen would be on the other side of this camera basically suggesting that she deserves either resign or she did something wrong while as you can imagine the obama administration was a little annoyed about so much attention being paid to ambassador rice i was the last thursday's press briefing at the white house and question after question was about susan rice and who knew what when about the benghazi attacks that took place well here was one of white house spokesman jay carney's responses to those barrage of questions and got going to say that this is again what is the point of the focus

on this it could have been me it could have been invested rice when i took questions on this too and we all relied on. the information from the intelligence community the focus on the sunday show appearance is entirely misplaced and it represents less interest i think in what happened in benghazi and political dynamics in washington and you know what he's right the media is focused on the wrong thing if they want to focus on susan rice that's fine but this overkill of her allegedly misleading the american people based on vague information she may have gotten might not be the most significant thing here and i want to focus on the potential of her becoming secretary of state and the issues stemming from that let's look at who susan rice is and what she represents here's some food for thought susan rice is worth between twenty three and forty three million dollars making her the wealthiest member of the executive branch according to the center for responsive politics she has investments in companies like trans canada corp

suncor and imperial oil ltd and that's just the beginning everything you see in yellow up here is something she has a stake in and when you look closely millions of dollars of assets in these canadian utility companies and banks which make up a third of her total investments now if confirmed by the senate as a secretary of state one of the first items on rice's agenda would be to weigh in on and eventually make a decision about the keystone pipeline now this is just the beginning of some major concerns about rice and joining me to discuss this further is michael brooks producer of majority report hey there michael what do you think is more important in determining whether rice is a good candidate for secretary of state i mean her so-called misspeak about benghazi on the morning shows or her financial holdings and relevant actions will definitely her financial holdings in trance canada and you know unfortunately this is part of a pattern with the state department this issue in general you know you had lobbyists who were senior officials on hillary clinton's campaign lobbying her in

the pipeline fortunately you know the pipeline was delayed by the administration i thing. due to the effort of activists on the ground. you know and i think if we look at climate change as the security issue it really is you could in some ways see. rice's holdings in these companies as analogous to the surgeon general you know having holdings and tobacco companies doesn't make a lot of sense as something she should address. and it's not just on these investments i know back in one thousand nine hundred four season rice was working for the clinton administration as a junior official often national security council and how to shape the u.s. policy toward central africa during and after the wand and genocide as want to invade neighboring countries to fight hutus talk a little bit about some of the criticisms of susan rice you know in that. well i

think that invests their rights in this regard is really just reflective of a lot of even president clinton himself and a lot of figures from that administration because basically they were unresponsive to genocide you know took place in real time it was clear what was happening and due to other concerns about not wanting to get bogged down in africa due to the marines being killed in mogadishu the year before in one thousand nine hundred three and they didn't want to intervene and this really horrific event happened and now the tendency coming out of that has been on the opposite extreme which has been to look the other way as the rwandan government under paul kagame a has a questionable domestic record of those some real significant domestic successes but also really plays kind of warlord and rebel pop politics across central africa so i think you know the best the rice is she kind of just embodies

a lot of these tendencies of the clinton administration officials who are involved in both sides of both letting what happened in rwanda happen and then probably going too far in the other extreme of being too forgiving of of the rwandan government it's so interesting to me because the position of secretary of state is so important in terms of representing this country on an international scale so why are we not hearing in the mainstream media about decisions like this decisions and policy shaping ideas about africa this is not what we're hearing. well because you know these are more complex topics they're a little bit they're not in the news cycle though obviously there's a lot happening in congo right now that's relevant to this discussion like you point out but benghazi is saturday or sunday morning you know argument topic right now and it's partisan and it's easy to fit into soundbites and people are scoring

points and it's easy to cover and easy to have people to come on and argue with each other about it's not to say that what happened in benghazi isn't really important and worthy of of talking about but her role in it was very limited you know she read some talking points that were prepared for her and as you say it's really not in any way central to evaluating her record i think it's interesting what you said michel that it's a little more complicated to talk about the issues in africa to talk about. you know what i think that investments and holdings in these major companies that you're going to have a role in making decisions on i mean this is you know standard washington you know sports politics why not why are people asking about that well because again from a partisan lens you know be interesting to watch republicans come out and say you know we need to approve this pipeline immediately but it's a major problem that she might potentially have a conflict of interest here so a lot of these things you know are driven just in this sort of partisan framework.

you know real issues are kind of obscured by it so i don't think that there is a political incentive for a lot of people to bring up her holdings because democrats are going to want to be defending her and republicans are really strongly strongly supportive of the pipeline i think that's such an interesting point that because her you know conflict of interest has to do with an issue that you know republicans would actually side with her on something they would agree on they're deciding not to bring it up but what do you think i mean where when weighing a potential secretary of state i mean one. qualities should be looked at and how much you know significant should be this be given i know that you know in the presidential election we were in conversation. every single hour of every single day it was about mitt romney's taxes a lot of people were saying you know what i don't care how much money he makes and that's irrelevant what do you think are the most important points that the american people should be thinking about and that the american media should be talking about

when it comes to whoever the next secretary of state is well i mean there's definitely some basic questions of someone's you know intellect their capacity i think she definitely meets those marks you know she's obviously a very talented person she's a very complex person there's been areas where she's been right about like the invasion of iraq she was opposed to it from the beginning and then you know the other questions that are really central that i want to see her pressed on are wanda her whole policy towards africa that's really where she launched her career from as an africa specialist and i would say with regards to the holdings and trans canada and other energy companies she needs to let go of them if she wants to be a credible candidate i think that that's a totally black or white thing and i hope you know you keep pushing on it and other people keep pushing it because that's very clear there's not much ambiguity there let's talk a little bigger picture here michel not just dealing with susan rice but about

something that you pressed upon which is that this really is kind of you know. the political media these days seems to have taken a lot of notes from e.s.p.n. and the way they cover sports and you know it's interesting to watch as fast moving and people at least you know a lot of producers and i on our talent like to think that their viewers like it when it's more of a you know a sporting event you know this he said she said account talk a little bit about big picture here how the media sort of does that and what you think the impact has been. well i think you know there is an element to all of this debate of argument and of entertainment and that's you know that's fine to a degree but i don't think it serves anybody to just constantly have a kind of very simplified and deluded debate and it's funny you know you mention e.s.p.n. and everybody kind of says well we cover it like sports but you know a lot of sports coverage is actually kind of more sophisticated it will be

a lot more details about how teams are performing there's kind of more like in peer a cool reference point some of the conversations are a lot more kind of civil and interesting and detailed and so i think it's very unhelpful whether we're talking about the budget or whether we're talking about these types of issues you know i think that specifically with regard to benghazi you had a really horrible event happen and what it's really turned into is that basically republicans are really terrified because president obama has reversed the kind of poll numbers on who americans trust with national security so again instead of having a broader discussion about national security about all of these other issues you're raising they're trying to score points and knock obama down in terms of his standing on those issues through rights and you know it's another just kind of sunday morning argument and it's not of really great service to anybody while as always with you an interesting discussion michael brock's producer of the majority report thanks so much and i thank you so much. well now into the latest news out of

syria there are reports that syrian president bashar al assad might be preparing to use chemical weapons in his war torn country but the united states and western allies have war in the syrian government that assad will be quote held accountable if his forces use those weapons against the rebels fighting his government now this is also the story being told to the american people with syria's stockpile of chemical weapons is dangerous and could be deadly sound familiar while if it does it that could be because you heard similar talk a decade ago in the lead up to war with iraq danger to our country is grave. the danger to our country is growing. the iraqi regime possesses biological and chemical weapons weapons of mass destruction weapons of mass destruction weapons of mass deaths every statement i make today is backed up by sources solid sources these are not assertions we're giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid

intelligence well not questioning these assertions and that solid intelligence is regarded today as one of the biggest media fails in history and yet there's a possibility we're seeing something similar with syria that this alleged movement of chemical weapons could mean the west can and should get involved this was made abundantly clear today as the latest news came out regarding the turmoil in the region appears the syrian government is preparing its biological and chemical weapons they will recall it and gave syria a warning this morning about the use of chemical weapons the possible use of chemical weapons by the syrian regime the syrian government is losing its grip on damascus and that may be part of the reason why they are preparing their chemical weapons at the gate asho losing a parent leaves and weapons. so does the increased attention to syria's chemical

weapons mean that the west is readying itself for an invasion and building an arsenal of justification well we can't say for sure one thing however is clear if history serves as an indicator we might be seeing some military action sooner rather than later. so i had here on r.g.p. strength in numbers to spine white house objections congress has awning even more sanctions on to a wrong this while the number of surveillance drones flying over the so-called rogue nation balloons all that and more when we come back.

and now on to a story that we continue to cover u.s. sanctions in iran late last week the u.s.

senate voted to increase sanctions imposing new penalties on any foreign businesses and banks that have ties to iran supports shipping shipbuilding or energy this would bring policy one step closer to a total trade embargo on iran now these sanctions were added by the senate to the annual defense authorization bill which still needs to be voted on by the house of representatives and signed into law by the president to talk more about these sanctions and also u.s. policy in iran i'm joined now by jim andi policy director for the national iranian american council and i know him all these sanctions of course are in response to you know the threat of nuclear weapons in iran but it seems like the white house isn't onboard with the same chance voted on by the senate talk a little bit about this clash and ideals here well i would i wouldn't call it a clash it was a very quiet confrontation if anything this was a sanctions package that was proposed initially as a total embargo sort of the last step in this same sions dance that we've seen over

the past couple years the last step before when they were full exhaustion of the same and what's left but you know potentially a naval blockade to enforce a total embargo that's of course an act of war there's also talk of you know this spring or summer being israel's last point before they actually go in and strike a so-called red line the so-called red line we've heard the red line articulated many times in the past but you know there's indications that this is the most serious of the red lines that have been drawn but the point is that the support of the same friends have articulated this as being sort of a race to the end with iran that we need to escalate our satans towards a full embargo before they can race to become quote unquote nuclear capable which is very unclear term and so what happened was the you know the supporters of this did not get everything that they wanted they didn't get the total embargo. but they still did manage to ratchet up the sanctions this is the third time in just the past calendar year that they've managed to do this and the white house is

understandably frustrated by this because we are now in a period where we are supposedly going to enter negotiations and where you know the u.s. election cycle has ended we have a brief period of time before march when the iranian election cycle begins and they're unable to do anything diplomatically and so we have this brief window where we need to have serious talks and there's a sense that congress is interfering in sort of undermining the president's flexibility by passing yet another round of sanctions that are potentially going to you know upset some of the united states allies in this process yeah and that's why i want to talk to you about because this is not a direct action on iran this is a direct action on anyone who does business with iran so obviously in the long run who does that hurt the most it hurts iran but what about some of these other countries who would be penalize for doing business with iran i mean what what are you hearing is there a reaction i think there's concern about these measures that every time we've seen

this in the past there's been this concern for instance you know these sanctions are really going to hit potentially turkey pretty hard because turkey depends on iran for its gas right now they've worked out some arrangements where they're essentially bartering through the use of gold for iran to continue to sell gas to turkey if this gets cut off it's unclear what what turkey can do and so i think my sense is that with the administration would like is for more waivers in these sanctions to give them at the very least some flexibility with our allies to say you know we are actually partners in this we're not you know we're not going into an economic war with you know an example right now a way of i think it is you know china obviously does business with iran and the u.s. has not you know imposed major penalties on china for that right exactly and those were built in because the administration did sort of take on congress. last december with central bank sanctions and manage to win some very short term

temporary waivers that they couldn't force sort of at their discretion the real issue the fundamental issue here though is that the administration doesn't have a waiver to use at the table with iran per se there's there's a lack of clarity about what iran would have to do in order to get the u.s. to be able to lift the sanctions or suspend them and so there's a lack of confidence i think every time these sanctions get passed that the sanctions are actually going to be used as leverage rather than just sort of step by step incremental approach towards confrontation and jamal when we talk about sanctions it's really interesting because this is sort of seen as a nonviolent alternative to any sort of military violence and its sense of the american people as a way to show that we're tough but it doesn't actually physically hurt anyone but that's not really the whole story is that it's not the whole story we're we're seeing now reports of there's a young iranian kid who died because he couldn't get medicine for

hemophilia treatment and we're hearing about these increased shortages of medicine in iran because the sanctions are cutting off those imports so this is having real real effects now this is a problem that the drafters of these new sanctions took into account they acknowledge that they exist but instead of actually taking action to make sure that our sanctions aren't cutting off medical exports to iran and so they said well we're going to demand the president give us a report about who is diverting these medical goods from iranians no that's fantastic if that's what we need to get to the bottom of this but at the end of the day if that report actually comes through you know if it names iranian officials great let's make sure that's not happening but we do know that the sanctions are going to be our main culprit of this and we're going to have to look in the mirror and say ok. what we what can we do to make sure that we're actually not the ones who are responsible for you know ordinary iranians dying because of lack of access

to basic medicine yeah absolutely yes especially when it comes to young people there let's switch gears a little bit because these sanctions aren't the only sort of new policy there was an article in the wall street journal that talked about the increased use of surveillance drones by the u.s. over iran talk about the impact and that has well we heard a few weeks ago about a drone that was actually shot at by iranian jets this was understandably area for concern we know that the u.s. apparently has escalating these these drone flights and the iranians have complained to the u.s. that these flights are violating iran's territory the u.s. denies that but we also know that. you know i think was last year or several months ago a spy drone is actually shot down inside of iran we also there have been reports of real cloak and dagger type stuff going on inside of iran where you've had street signs replaced by cameras and and monitoring devices by the u.s.

and its intelligence assets inside of iran so there seems to be a pretty thick blanket of surveillance over iran but the problem here is that i mean for one it really doesn't do a whole lot to bolster confidence or trust between the two countries and two there is a need for more oversight and surveillance but it has to be done in a legal fashion and there is a legal basis with which to do that and that's the international the i.a.e.a. the u.n. nuclear monitoring agency and what we should be doing hopefully if we can get these talks started is to work on an end game that involves greater legal inspections by the way that iran except that can give the u.s. and its partners assurance that iran is not moving towards a nuclear weapon and gives iran it's in title meant to domestic enrichment but wasn't this sort of the process before and. and why isn't this something that can be working this is something to be working if we're actually if we're actually

having these negotiations and i think there's a lack of clarity about what is our end goal can we arrive at a point where inspections are robust enough that we can be assured that there isn't a problem here we can actually put this issue to rest certainly lots to consider and some interesting new developments here policy director for the national iranian american council thanks so much as well new york city has always been chock full of things to stimulate your senses from the crowds of people the sounds of st performances the smells and of course the various signs posted all around the city when new york artist has just been arrested for a series of posters he designed and then posted posters they look like this and are critical of police surveillance the artist now identified as it's not a tear i did a silhouette of voice scrambled interview and said his mission is simply to get the information out there and to make people start to take notice but don't recall her solutions really. we're we're we're talking about this is the dinner table we're

going to take for this week off the. ball went off. to kill people there or. before the war part of google seems to want to talk about boring people who should be talking about whether that struck knowledge of this culture well now that artist is behind bars ironically the n.y.p.d. tracked him down in an investigation and invest and arrested him he faces fifty six counts of criminal possession of a forced instrument and grand larceny possession of stolen property now while the n.y.p.d. is discovery of his identity isn't good for a t.i.a. it certainly proves his point that surveillance is a growing part of american life. well capital account is up next on our team let's check in with laura lister to see what's on the agenda today hey there lauren happy monday happy monday you know what a great day to revisit the lessons of the financial crisis and how the things that

have not been dealt with are still looming in the shadows threatening to bring down the financial system once again it's not a pleasant thought but it is one we need to think about it because our guest today sheila bair she was the head of the f.d.i.c during the financial crisis cleaning up all of the mess in the banking system afterwards and she says that so many of the problems that plague this system then have not been dealt with fully and threatened to be a problem again and if the country if things go ride we could be faced with a great recession where nothing has really changed so we'll hear all about in three minutes why she thinks this is the case and what the first corruptions could be to avoid it oh isn't it always just a good day to revisit the financial crisis lauren lyster thanks so much well that's going to do it for us for now but for more on the stories we covered go to youtube dot com slash r t america or check out our website our team dot com slash usa you can also follow me on twitter i'm at christine and we will be back here in thirty

minutes. commission free recriminations free zones for judges free arrangements free risk free stews child free. time moseley braun counseling video for your media projects and free media dog r t v dot com. culture is that so much in a moment taxpayers' money magazine street means a lot of people are hearing within a member of the world's media is fond of the dramatic from water wars when it comes to describing the future management of global water resources.

the feds. the for.